Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 1495

This morning I woke up to a tweet from somebody asking me why–despite my obvious love of cities and real estate–do I seem more influenced by venture capitalists on my blog. He wondered if it was because of a lack of public/online real estate thought leaders.

I responded by saying yes; that’s part of the reason. I honestly can’t think of one real estate developer that hosts a personal and regular blog. (If you know of any, please pass them along.) Whereas I can’t think of a major VC who doesn’t blog.

Sure there are other real estate professionals who blog, but a lot of those sites just feel like giant lead generation tools and those aren’t enjoyable to read. I’m trying not to create that kind of blog. The trust of readers is more important to me than trying to promote my businesses.

But the other reason I often cite venture capitalists and “tech” centric topics is because I believe in cross pollinating industries. I don’t believe the world operates neatly under silos and neither should our minds and businesses. I’ve also argued many times before that with software eating the world , nobody should be ignoring technology.

At the same time, the consumer web feels to me like this profound social force changing the way people live and interact with each, which, if you think about it, is what cities have always been about. And so I see all kinds of interesting overlaps.

Of course, I also look to planners, designers and other urbanists for inspiration. But I don’t like to do so exclusively. Industries, like anything else, can quickly become insular–whether tech or urban planning. My interest–and the focus of this blog–is cities. And I will continue to incorporate ideas and viewpoints from any discipline that I think touches them.

A reader recently suggested that I do a post explaining why we aren’t seeing more midrise buildings going up in Toronto. Specifically, why are midrise buildings considered to be “too risky” for developers and what could be done to improve the situation? So today I’d like to focus on that topic.

But first, let me say that I think Toronto is already in the midst of its midrise development era. The push for intensification first brought about towers, but we’ve come to realize that the tower isn’t necessarily going to serve everybody’s needs.

Here’s what John Bentley Mays recently wrote in the Globe and Mail  regarding midrise developments:

With Duke, SQ, Nest and similar structures, we may be seeing the start of a promising design trend in Toronto’s multifamily housing market.

And given that our Chief Planner, Jennifer Keesmaat , has been a vocal supporter of midrise, I think there’s no question that we’ll only see more and more of this type of development. Nonetheless, there are challenges. Here are a few that come to mind.

1. Fragmented sites

Because midrise developments typically target established main streets with smaller lot sizes, developers often have to contend with fragmented ownership in order to assemble a site . So instead of talking to one owner (say the owner of a large parking lot downtown), a developer may have to contend with a dozen owners who all need to get on board for the development to happen.

2. Scale is too small

Developers have a lot of fixed costs that don’t materially change whether you’re putting up a 50 storey tower or an 8 storey midrise building. Some costs are certainly variable, but there are overall economies to scale to having more units in which to distribute costs over.

3. Community opposition

The whole point of midrise intensification is to increase the housing supply in established neighborhoods. But along with this comes greater risk for community opposition. You may have a neighbor who’s been living for 30 years adjacent to where you want to build. And when you come along and try and build a 10 storey midrise building, they can get grouchy.

4. Strict guidelines 

To try and counteract community opposition (and promote good urbanism), the city has developed a number of design guidelines for midrise buildings . And while they’re well intentioned, they can be onerous for developers and designers. For example, the requirement to terrace down towards adjacent residential neighborhoods produces a lot of inefficiencies (though it does create spectacular terraces). Oftentimes you’ll end up with more unit types than you would in a large tower.

All this said, I’m a big believer in the midrise building typology. At TAS, I’m involved in two such projects– DUKE and Kingston&Co . Both are exciting projects and both, I think, are at the forefront of a new development era for Toronto. Vancouver pioneered the podium + point tower typology. Toronto is about to do the same with midrise buildings.

This morning I’m going to a memorial service for a close family friend. His name was Ed Hung. You may have read about him in the Toronto Star , because on March 16th, 2014 at 11:00AM Central European Time he died by way of an assisted suicide. He was in Switzerland.

And the reason he was in Switzerland was because, in Canada, you’re not allowed to do what he did. You’re not allowed to seek help and decide when it’s your time to go. That’s supposed to be left up to some greater being.

But what if you’re like Ed? What if you have Lou Gehrig’s Disease and your body noticeably deteriorates within the span of a few months? What if you’ve just lost the ability to do what you love most: play the guitar?

Ed was a lawyer. And a successful one at that. But he loved music. The first time I met him was at my mother’s house one Christmas where he was playing the guitar and singing songs all night. He had a band and that’s what he loved to do.

Sometimes I think it’s a shame that people often don’t get the chance to just do what they love; they have to do other things in order to make enough money. But I suppose that’s life.

Nonetheless, it is somebody’s life. And I agree with Ed in that quality of life is a subjective concept. If you’ve just lost all ability to move your left hand, then it’s you who are going to have to deal with that new reality—not anybody else.

Which is why I fully support Ed’s decision. I didn’t know him as well as I would have liked, but I have a lot of respect for what he did. He took matters into his own hands and did it his way—as he beautifully expressed in his farewell YouTube video .

I know that my family will miss Ed dearly, but he’s left us with something important to think about. Before he passed he wrote a letter called Approaching Death. You can read it here . And in that letter, he delivers a powerful set of lines about the laws in our country:

“…my pride as a Canadian has somewhat diminished after having been on my knees begging to die in another country. This is not fair and I certainly do not wish it upon any of my fellow Canadians.”

I know that this may not sit well with some of you, but I believe in a country built on personal freedoms. And this, to me, is a case of personal freedom. I’m not sure what I would do if I were in Ed’s position, but I know with certainty that I would want the ability to do whatever I decide.